Liberate your studio space and save money with virtual machines

Remember back in the day, storing files for a magazine spread or ad campaign didn’t pose such a spacious, expensive headache? As your creative business grows, clients will expect higher quantities of media content across a range of platforms, and all that content will need archiving. Storage hardware takes up precious space in your studio – and the rent for all that space doesn’t come cheap. With recent advances in connectivity and cloud technology, you can move your large, hot and costly kit out of server room, and turn it into a space that earns you money.

By Becki Crossley December 05, 2018

What’s driving change?

· High rent prices on office locations (especially in cities). According to Instant Offices, the average cost per person to rent office space in London is £650+ per month, and £300+ per month in Manchester.

· Maintenance costs. Power and cooling costs for server rooms can stack up, even more so when you consider the need for a skilled technician. According to Indeed, the average server technician salary is £26,632.

· Security. Data security is more important than ever after GDPR. The ICO can impose fines of up to £17m or 4% of global turnover for serious data offences.

· Expensive downtime. Losing power to a server means losing access to data. Daily Business group report that a single hour of downtime can cost a small business £800.

· No room to expand. As your business grows, so will your need for server space that you may not have or be able to afford.

What can you do?

Moving your server room to a dedicated offsite server location (datacentre) is a great way to reclaim the space your core hardware took up, while still having constant access to your data and often improving its security. By liberating studio space, not only will you have the room (and money saved!) to take on more creative projects, but you’ll be utilising your space much more cost effectively.

You’ll no longer need as much engineering resource to maintain your servers, and you won’t need to worry about the security of sensitive data or important projects. And, when your workflow demands increase, you can expand your server without worrying about needing more space, installation costs or the extra strain on your IT department.

Not to mention, your power supply is typically more secure in a dedicated datacentre, and features fail-safes to ensure there are no issues – most guarantee year-round power with redundant components fed directly to each rack to supply backup power when needed.

Virtualising your hardware

Hosting your server offsite also allows you to virtualise your key hardware. Virtualisation is creating a virtual (rather than physical) resource, such as an operating system, storage or network. This means you can create a virtual environment for your workflow which you can expand when you need, without taking up any onsite room. You can access these resources as and when you need them, which will increase your capabilities without taking up floor space. You can then add virtual computers for more server, CPU and GPU capability without buying the physical hardware.

Using a keyboard, video and mouse (KVM) solution

Once your kit is virtualised, you and your team can remotely connect to your server and work on projects without ever needing a PC – just a keyboard, screen and mouse, with an internet connection. All your suites can then be made multi-purpose, taking up less physical space and allowing any designer to work from any computer – plus you’ll have a tidier, less cluttered workspace in your studio!